The Calgary Flames have sent injured defenseman Mark Giordano back to Alberta, and he will not be in the lineup on Monday night against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Giordano sustained an upper-body injury when he fell awkwardly in a game last week against the New Jersey Devils. Though Giordano took the ice for the warmup skate ahead of this weekend’s game against the New York Islanders, he was unable to play. 

He may be unable to play for a while, though the Flames aren’t exactly being forthcoming about his timeline at the moment. 

On Sunday afternoon, while meeting with the media to discuss the Curtis Glencross trade, Flames general manager Brad Treliving provided a vague, but apologetic update on Giordano’s status:

He’s gone home. I know i’m being not very helpful with that. We’ve placed him on IR.

I commit that I’ll have more information by tomorrow for you, he obviously won’t play tomorrow, and we’re just trying to work through it.

We all saw in Long Island the other night, Mark took warmup. He’s a guy where if there’s a will – a slight possibility that he was going to play in that game – he was going to try. It wasn’t possible He’s gone back to Calgary now and see what the next couple of days bring…

The Flames still have a week and four games remaining on their current Eastern Conference road trip, and now that Giordano has been sent home, it seems likely that he won’t play until the Flames return to Calgary to host the Anaheim Ducks on March 11. 

Treliving obviously hasn’t ruled out the possibility of Giordano being airlifted back into the Flames lineup before then, but reading between the lines, it would seem likely that Calgary will be without their captain for at least a week.